Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

22V. I. LENINslogan, as well as the question of a straight or zigzagpath of development. The direct overthrow or, at the worst,the weakening and undermining of the old regime, thedirect establishment of new government agencies by thepeople—all this, undoubtedly, is the most direct path,the most advantageous as far as the people are concerned,but one that requires the maximum force. Given an overwhelmingpreponderance of force it is possible to win by adirect frontal attack. Lacking this, one may have to resortto roundabout ways, to marking time, to zigzags, retreats,etc., etc. Of course, the path of a monarchist constitutiondoes not, by any means, exclude revolution, the elementsof which are prepared and developed by this path as wellin an indirect manner, but this path is a longer, more zigzagone.Running through all Menshevik literature, especiallythat of 1905 (up to October), is the accusation that theBolsheviks are “bigoted” and also exhortations to themon the need for taking into consideration the zigzag pathof history. In this feature of Menshevik literature we haveanother specimen of the kind of reasoning which tells usthat horses eat oats and that the Volga flows into the CaspianSea, reasoning which befogs the essence of a disputablequestion by reiterating what is indisputable. That historyusually follows a zigzag path and that a Marxist shouldbe able to make allowance for the most complicated andfantastic zigzags of history is indisputable. But this reiterationof the indisputable has nothing to do with thequestion of what a Marxist should do when that same historyconfronts the contending forces with the choice of astraight or a zigzag path. To dismiss the matter at suchmoments, or at such periods, when this happens by arguingabout the usual zigzag course of history is to take after the“man in the muffler” 9 and become absorbed in contemplationof the truth that horses eat oats. As it happens, revolutionaryperiods are mainly such periods in history whenthe clash of contending social forces, in a comparativelyshort space of time, decides the question of the country’schoice of a direct or a zigzag path of development for a comparativelyvery long time. The need for reckoning with thezigzag path does not in the least do away with the fact that